


Discoverer

by Yuletide (Zebra)



Category: Foreigner Series - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 08:44:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zebra/pseuds/Yuletide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Algini's turn to face Bren's humanness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discoverer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hydrangea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrangea/gifts).



> Set during the gap between Invader and Inheritor

The shot rang.

Algini reacted instantly, although, if he could hear the shot and it had flown true, it would be too late. Nevertheless, if turned left and down, a weight barreling into him from that side. Only his great strength and mass meant that where going down behind the low wall instead of staying out in the open where only the columns were.

They went down hard and awkwardly. He couldn’t get his hand under him to cushion or divert the fall. The crack as the paidhi had landed overlapped with the rattle of him coming down un on top of his charge.

And then there was silence, before all hell broke loose in the hall and on his pocketcom. But none of that mattered to Algini. It was the business of other people to take care of the shooter and restore the sanctity of this back hall of the Bujavid. His job was the immediate safety of the paidhi-aiji, who was covered by a wall from two sides and Algini with all his armor curled above him from the others. The paidhi-aiji who hadn’t moved at all, even after Algini managed to get his own weight of him. 

Cover as much of the paidhi as possible may be the first order of business, however, covering him from further outside harm which was unlikely to manifest wouldn’t help at all, if the paidhi had injured himself in the fall and required immediate medical attention.

Via the pocketcom he could here the junior members on duty starting to sort the situation out. There was a clear on the shooter, they had him. There was a clear further down where ministral staff was sealed in their offices till the clear for the halls was given and Bujavid security had ascertained what the ministral staff knew about the situation.

There still wasn’t a clear for this section of the hall and it would be some time in the coming, none of the junior security willing to jeopardize the relatively secure position the paidhi-aiji and his security had claimed.

Carefully, keeping his ears on the pocketcom, Algini lay down the weapon he held in one and took the paidhi’s arm. He had some medical knowledge, but he knew nothing about humans. A fact he now cursed, he should have asked Banichi or Jago for a debriefing on what they knew about the human body before they managed to vanish who knew where. Even if Algini could take a fairly good guess where they were and how he could contact them, he wouldn’t unless the aishiditat came down, and they’d probably know about that before he would and be back in the Bujavid in time to protect the paidhi from the fallout. 

But that was neither here nor there. Here was the unmoving paidhi who had a pulse. Algini took that for a good sign, he didn’t know what a healthy human’s pulse should be like, but a present pulse meant not dead. It was almost like an ateva’s pulse, only the timing was wrong. 

And, yes, if he concentrated he could feel air moving against his hand, moving like it could only be moved by breathing.

Maybe he was unconcious, the position he was in couldn’t be comfortable. At least there was no puddle of blood forming around his head or staining they white coat. Algini hoped that was a sign that the bullet hadn’t hit the paidhi. They should get him a bullet proof vest. As a human he was a much smaller target, but the color of his skin and preferred clothes made him stand out like an invitation for target practice. The smaller stature also meant that if he was hit, the damage would be that much larger than it would be to an adult ateva. The assassin’s guild didn’t teach how to lethally remove children from any equation. Children were never appropriate targets after all. But guild members still knew what kind of damage their weapons could do to a child, if only as warning on weapon’s safety. And the paidhi being like a child even if not in mind at least in body size, Algini was sure the same principles would apply to him.

Then the all clear for the hall came, a call for Algini to bring the paidhi-aiji up to the apartment as fast as possible, into premisses designated save. Even if the Atageini lord wasn’t fond of humans and not all of the staff’s manchi could be ascertained to be to Lady Damiri.

“Nand’ paidhi. We are to go back to the apartment, your meeting with the minister of education has been canceled. Can you stand up?”

Algini sat back on his hunches, waiting to see whether the paidhi moved on his own. Preferably that the paidhi move on his own, Algini wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do further damage after landing on him with his full weight if he was already injured.

“Given me a moment, Algini-ji.”

Hearing the paidhi high-pitched, clear voice, took a tremendous weight of Algini’s shoulders. The paidhi appeared to be well enough. And after that moment, which felt like an eternity to Algini, the paidhi indeed started to move, carefully sorting his limbs out.

Algini stood, holding a hand out to the paidhi to help him up. A critical once-over showed no signs of blood, the paidhi came up easily enough, all limbs functioning. Only a few stray whisps of hair had escaped his braid. But then Algini had noticed the paidhi’s hair tended to escape the braid even under normal circumstances and no matter how much care Lady Damiri’s servants took to make sure it remained in its confines.

Clear blue eyes looked at him for direction. Clear and shining with and intelligence belying the child-sized body. Nonetheless spooky and oh so foreign. Another reminder that the paidhi was not an ateva. And while the paidhi behaved like an ateva often enough, a mimikry more and more seldom broken by the human mannerisms showing through. It was situations like these which brought all his foreigness to the fore. Banichi had warned him, Jago had told him, he had read the reports. But it was one thing to hear or read it and entirely another if one’s charge suddenly became utterly alien and an unknown quantity. The recent months had lured him into a false sense of security. He thought he knew the paidhi, thought he knew how to read him, thought he could rely on him. Now it was clear, that he had to shift his world view and take the unknown, the unknowable quantity that was the paidhi into account.

They moved, passing junior security, the lift in sight, its doors opened, waiting for them. The paidhi walked next to him, docile as if nothing had happened. But Algini’s blood was still pumping too fast, prepped for a fight or the next craziness of the paidhi.

An ateva would have let himself be taken down by Algini. Algini would have guided them down without a fuss or a risk of undue injury. The paidihi however had barreled into him, tried to take him down. As if he was the charge and the paidhi the security. 

It smarted to be treated as such, to be treated as if the paidhi thought him incapable of protecting his charge and therefore needing to act on his own. 

It confused him. An ateva lord might move to protect a lover, a lesser of nevertheless great importance to the stability of an association, but never would an ateva lord move to protect security, unless he was addled and not of sound reasoning. As occurred from time to time.

Jago had told him, that no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much he was tempted to doubt himself, no matter how confused it left him, the paidhi was not ateva. The paidhi, under pressure would not behave like an ateva. And they could not predict which way the paidhi, being human, would move. The paidhi was just as likely to move as his security wanted him to move as he was to try to protect his greatest enemy. A move his security had to prevent at all cost, since it was almost assured that such a move would result in the paidhi’s death.

Now he understood when she had told him to expect the unexpected and to take all possibilities into account, no matter how crazy, no matter how unlikely he thought them.

The lift was taking them up.

Algini had gotten better at reading the paidhi. At the beginning he thought he would never be able to glean anything from those foreign features, but now he could only marvel at how expressive the paidhi was. Who was far less expressive than Jase. Algini could read the questions in the paidhi’s eyes, the desire to know everything Algini knew about the situation. But the paidhi was playing a good little charge and at least holding his questions till they’d reached secure grounds. Or maybe he knew how much he had rattled Algini was trying to make amends by being atevi.

Maybe, the thought occurred to Algini, it was man’chi. Human man’chi, he had seen the catalogues and brochures, and the occassional incomprehensible broadcast from Mospheira. Humans came in pairs, like assassin’s did. But assassin’s had stable third point, humans saw the instable two as the ideal. Quite a lot of their broadcasts dealt with the one, the one seemingly being as indesirable as it would be to an ateva, trying to find the second, quite often there was a third who was seen as the competition and the rival to be removed from the equation so the two could be restored.

Maybe the paidhi was trying to establish his two. Jago was curious, by her accounts the paidhi had seemed interested. It had been a foolish move on her part, they all had seen how it made the paidhi even more indescipherable and who could say what would come out of it. Would the paidhi try to establish his two and maybe see his other security as rivals who needed to remove. Not even mentioning that it was wrong from Jago’s side. One didn’t enter an intimate relationship with a charge, only the highest could afford themselves that luxurious. And only Ilisidi made it an open secret, there might be rumours about other lords, but not concrete to go on. And it wasn’t like the paidhi had any other possibilities.

Maybe Jago’s offer had given the paidhi the thought that such a thing might be permissble this side of the straight. Maybe now that this Bard was no longer in reach and Jago was no longer available to start what he finished, the paidhi was looking at his other choices.

If that was the case, Algini could only hope that the paidhi hadn’t chosen him.. He knew nothing about humans, although merely being in the paidhi’s presences was furthering his knowledge by leaps and bounds. He would surely hurt the paidhi. And how would he keep him from trying to protect his lover. Human broadcasts held humans doing crazy things to protect or held their lovers in the highest regard. 

Tano would have been a better choice, Tano knew more about humans. Tano who had chosen this day to take care of various business concerning the paidhi’s office. Tano who would maybe have known how to predict which way to move, or how to make the paidhi move into the right direction.

The apartment doors had opened and closed behind them. They were save.

Servants hurried to take Bren’s clothes. One commenting on how is braid hadn’t stood up to the rigors of the day and what they’d try differently tomorrow.

Tomorrow when hopefully nobody tried to shoot at the paidhi or at a troublesome relative has today’s case had turned out to be. Tomorrow when Tano would be back to deal with the paidhi.

But today they paidhi was still Algini’s responsibility more so than usual, and now that most of the servants had left on their duty and the paidhi was preparing to turn in for a bath, Algini couldn’t keep quite any longer.

“Nand’paidhi. You brought me into a very difficult position today. You moved to protect me. You don’t protect your security, it makes our job more difficult. We protect you.”

The paidhi smiled at that.

“Maybe when each of you has told me that, it’ll finally sink in and I’ll be less of a trouble. I’m only human after all. We grow attached to the people we know, to the people who were nice to us. You are all I have left of a less crazy life. I’ve lost so many people I knew, I don’t want to lose you too.”

With these words the paidhi turned to follow the servants he knew and, Algini was sure, would protect if the need arose. Algini had a lot to think about. From now on he would take into account the little or rather large insight, that the paidhi would move to protect him, if Algini wanted him to or not. The paidhi would move in ways no ateva could protect. If his security understood him better, understood how he would move, they could keep him all the safer. 

Algini would intend to learn more about Bren and his humanness.

☙End❧

* * *


End file.
